Suddenly anxious, Justine glanced around the crowded street. Buffy was nowhere in sight, which was a huge stroke of luck. Once she got Anya underground, the dangerous Queen of Wands wouldn’t be a threat. Buffy couldn’t interfere with the final stage if she didn’t know where they were.
“Follow me.” Justine turned and headed back toward the alley.
Anya fell into step behind her.
CHAPTER 13
Joyce disconnected her cell phone when she saw Anya shoving her way through the crowd across the street. She was already upset because the answering machine was picking up calls, but she hadn’t expected Anya to actually leave the gallery unattended.
“Anya!” Joyce shouted, but the girl didn’t hear her. Or doesn’t want to! And I don’t need something else to worry about.
Joyce eased into the flow of the art show browsers to chase Anya down. Buffy had called from the library half an hour ago asking about Justine. For reasons her daughter wouldn’t explain—again—it was urgent that she and Giles find the artist. Coming from Buffy, urgent usually meant some kind of catastrophic chaos was about to erupt. Joyce hadn’t seen Justine all day, but had promised to look for her and report her location if she found her. However, she couldn’t search the art show if the gallery was empty. With luck, Anya had left someone else in charge.
“Anya!” Joyce jumped and waved, but Anya was barreling through the throng like a runaway locomotive.
Joyce kept going until a knot of people watching a street magician blocked her path. Holding her temper, she worked her way around the blockade. Anya had stopped moving several yards away and was talking to someone. Joyce started to shout again, then realized the other person was the artist Justine. Both women suddenly turned and started walking away from her.
Following, Joyce got out her cell phone and dialed Giles’ office while keeping Justine and Anya in sight. Anya was apparently part of the unknown disaster that was about to befall the town. After all they’d been through, Joyce knew that getting word to Buffy the Slayer and her trusty Watcher was more imperative than protecting the gallery from light-fingered art lovers.
“Giles! It’s Joyce.” Joyce put a finger in her ear.
“Have you located Justine?” Giles asked.
“Yes. She’s at the art show with Anya. Wait a minute—” Joyce lost sight of them and elbowed her way forward.
“Anya? What is Anya—” Giles hesitated. “Is she acting strangely by any chance?”
“I can’t see—” Joyce cleared the crowd and spotted the two women on the sidewalk. “Strangely? I don’t think so. She and Justine just went into the alley between Wooden Wares and the old Fabrics and Notions.”
“Alley by Wooden Wares and Fabrics and Notions.” Giles voice sounded distant and clipped.
“I know where it is.” Joyce heard Buffy in the background.
“The fabric store went out of business six months ago,” Joyce added. “Does that help?”
“Yes, very much. Thank you. Can you keep them in sight without being seen?” Giles asked. “We don’t want to lose them, but you must be careful.”
“I’m moving as we speak. Hang on. Is something going on?” Keeping the line open, Joyce hopped the curb and cautiously approached the alley. Afternoon shadows had begun to darken the narrow corridor. The deserted fabric store seemed like an island of gloom in the midst of the festival. Breathing in deeply, she raised the phone to her ear and peeked around the corner. “The alley’s a dead end, Giles, but—they’re gone!”
“We’re on our way.”
“Should I—” Joyce started when the phone went dead in her hand.
* * *
“There’s a trap door in the basement of that old sewing store that leads to the city tunnels,” Buffy said when Giles hung up. “And a thousand places Justine could be hiding down there!”
“Yes, but she doesn’t know her way around the underground network.” Although Buffy was quite correct, Giles maintained an outward calm. “Chances are she’s chosen an access that’s relatively close to her hiding place. Less risk of getting lost.”
“We can hope anyway.” Buffy frowned.
“You go on ahead.” Giles pointed to the door, then glanced back over his shoulder. Willow and Oz had slumped forward and Xander was still stretched out on the floor. “I’ll have to transport Xander, Willow and Oz myself somehow.”
“How is the problem, isn’t it?” Buffy hesitated. “I think I’d better help. They have to be there when I destroy the paintings or they’ll die.”
Giles spoke as he moved toward the comatose trio. “No, Justine must not finish Anya’s Tarot reading or the last painting will be empowered. If Kali’s essence emerges and lodges in Justine’s mind, then all is lost. Go!”
“Out of here.” Buffy raced through the doors and was gone.
Giles turned his attention to the three mentally deactivated young people. Over the past three years they had gone from being a pleasant but unsettling inconvenience who threatened the Slayer’s secret and mission to being indispensable associates and friends. He would get them to Justine’s location if he had to carry them one at a time.
“That should be the last resort, however,” Giles muttered as he positioned himself in front of Willow and Oz. He felt ridiculous commanding the almost mindless bodies, but he hardly had a choice. “Stand up.”
To his immense relief, they both rose. Sluggishly, but they were on their feet and still responding to spoken commands. After shoving his car keys into his pocket, Giles ordered Oz to lift and brace Xander on one side while he took the other. With Willow moving ahead to open and close doors per his precise instructions, Giles and Oz propped up and dragged the comatose Xander to Oz’s van.
* * *
Anya fought the hold Justine had on her mind without success. All the determined anger she could muster had no effect on muscles and limbs that were bound by the artist’s command. She stopped trying as she climbed down the ladder into the tunnel under the deserted store. The only thing that kept the futility of her circumstances from driving her insane was the hope that Justine would lead her to Xander.
He might be down here, too, Anya told herself. In fact, Justine probably used this weird whammy to make him do what she wanted!
The idea that the artist had forced Xander’s attention away from her lifted Anya’s spirits and gave her courage. It also gave her purpose.
Justine hadn’t turned her into a puppet for fun. Whatever the artist had planned for her and Xander had to be of the bad . . . as Buffy liked to say.
Buffy!
Hope jarred Anya as her feet touched hard ground. The Slayer got on her nerves a lot, especially since Xander liked to spend so much time with her. However, Buffy wouldn’t ignore a missing friend. She and the stuffy librarian would search every inch of Sunnydale to find him, including the labyrinth of tunnels and caves.
“This way!” Justine barked.
Anya turned to follow like a cowed cur. Do something! You can’t be coerced by a lower magician! It’s embarassing! Desperate, she tried to resist again. Her legs stubbornly moved after the artist, but the force of Anya’s indignation affected her gait. Her foot dragged, digging a long depression in the dust.
Not terribly effective, Anya thought, but better than meeting some horrible fate without trying to fight back. Considering that she had been responsible for a fair measure of horrible fates over the centuries, the irony of being shanghaied into Justine’s unknown, but no doubt diabolical plan was not lost on her. She wasn’t about to make things any easier on the artist than necessary.
Anya fought her legs with every stride as Justine drove deeper and deeper into the tunnel system. There wasn’t much chance that Buffy would find this exact location anytime soon, but it was the only chance she had. Behind her, she left a trail of long marks.
* * *
Joyce was still hanging out in front of Wooden Wares. Her worried look intensified as Buffy approached. “What’s going on, Buffy?”
>
“Nothing much,” Buffy quipped. “Just a little problem with the continued existence of the universe.”
“The whole universe?” Joyce gasped.
“Yeah. We’ve upgraded from saving the world.” Buffy called back as she ran toward the door leading into the vacant fabric store. “You can go now, Mom. I can take things from here.”
“Where’s Giles?” Joyce called back.
“He’s on his way!” Buffy tried the doorknob. It was locked from the inside, but the old bolt gave easily when she threw her weight against the door. She paused just long enough to watch her mother leave, then rushed inside and down the rickety stairs to the basement. She had found the trap door during a mad dash to escape a particularly durable demon last year, but had not used it again. The tunnels below were tributaries of the main network and connected to a series of caves and caverns.
And about a hundred of them would be a perfect hangout for a mad artist who wants privacy!
Buffy jumped off the ladder and stopped to listen. There was nothing to hear except the rustling of foraging rats. About twenty minutes had passed since her mother had called, which gave Justine a decent head start even with Anya stuck in robot gear. Some of the lights in the secondary maintenance access tunnel were working. That would make moving through the maze easier, but wouldn’t help her find Justine.
Or would it?
Buffy scanned the floor. The dust and dirt around the base of the ladder was imprinted with a jumble of footprints. Some of the prints disappeared into the tunnel on the left, but the fresher, smaller ones had been coming and going from the right. A long, narrow mark caught her eye when she reached across it to pick up stones and broken pieces of wood from a pile against the wall. Confident about the direction Justine had taken, she constructed a rough arrow for Giles to follow, then headed down the passageway.
She kept her eye on the prints, but the layer of dust became thinner and nonexistent in places as she got farther from the entrance. It became difficult to distinguish the old from the new and the smaller from the larger. The tunnel shaft was made from rock shored up with occasional rusty metal plates and timbers. She stopped every fifty feet or so to make another pointer, hoping the British born and raised Giles had enough pioneer savvy to recognize them as direction markers.
When Buffy came to the first break in the stone that was wide enough for a person to squeeze through, she checked for prints.
No footprints pointed into the dark break, but her gaze focused on a long, deep mark in the dust.
Buffy knelt to study it closer. There was nothing remarkable about the depression—except that it was identical to the mark by the ladder and unmarred by an overlying footprint. Fresh? Curious, Buffy glanced to each side and realized the marks ran as far as she could see along the tunnel floor. The toe of the shoe was clearly squared off.
Anya?
Like Willow, Buffy wasn’t quite sure how she felt about the newly-human woman who had spent the last thousand years making men miserable. She didn’t have a problem with Anya’s bluntly honest approach to everything because there was never a question about how she felt or what she thought. In fact, the only thing she seemed to think about was Xander.
Buffy frowned. Last night Anya had assumed Xander was with Justine. Since Xander had been at the library all night and all day, he had completely disappeared off Anya’s female radar screen. Had she come down here with Justine hoping to find him? Did she have reason to think he was in trouble?
Did she deliberately leave a trail? Buffy wondered as she stood up and surveyed the broken line of long depressions. It was a farfetched idea. Anya was out of the Slayer circle. She didn’t know that Justine was the unwitting pawn of a Hindu goddess who wanted to destroy the universe several billion years ahead of schedule. Or that Justine planned to steal her mind to empower the fourth painting and make it happen.
Oblivion was only one Tarot reading away.
Buffy quickly made another pointer, then hurried on down the passageway. She tracked the broken line of long marks just in case. Time was not on her side.
* * *
Wooden Wares and the old fabric store were situated half a block inside the area the police had cordoned off for the Sunnydale Sidewalk Art Festival. Giles stopped the van in the street, nose into the wooden barriers, turned off the ignition and pocketed the keys. The world could end before he found a legal parking space.
He spotted Joyce as he slipped out and slammed the door closed. She stopped pacing when he waved, then broke into a run toward them. As he turned to open the back door, a Sunnydale squad car pulled up beside him. A second car screeched to a halt behind it.
“We never see a police officer when a demon attacks, but violate a minor traffic law and they swarm.” Muttering under his breath, Giles turned to confront them, hiding his anxiety as the minutes passed. “Is there a problem, officers?”
“You can’t park here, buddy!” A young, uniformed cop swaggered up to him.
“Right. You gotta move it.” His paunchy partner blustered. Frowning, he flipped open a citation pad. “After I write out a ticket.”
“Fine. Just stick it on the windshield. I’ve got an emergency.” Giles slid open the side door. Getting two dazed teens and one who was out cold past the overly zealous policemen without raising their suspicions would be a challenge, but he had to chance it. “Oz—help me get Xander out.”
Oz slid out of the back seat and pulled on Xander’s arm.
“Hey!” The younger man grabbed Giles. “You leave this car and I’m having it towed!”
Giles wrenched free. “Far be it from me to argue with the local authorities. Do what you must. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Giles!” Joyce ran up looking frantic. “What’s going on here?” she asked the officers.
“Illegal parking, Ms. Summers.” The older man touched the brim of his hat. “Do you know this guy?”
“Yes! I called him.” Joyce’s eyes flashed indignantly. “Go check with your captain or whoever you check with. This is—”
“—an emergency,” Giles finished for her, grateful that she had the presence of mind to buy them a few minutes. He positioned himself on one side of Xander before his limp form crumpled to the ground. “Oz. Other side. Quickly, please!”
Oz obeyed without a word.
“Right!” Joyce glared at the police and waved her cell phone at the squad cars. “So—go call!”
The two officers exchanged a look, shrugged, and retired to one of the vehicles to contact the station.
“What’s wrong with him?” Joyce peered into Xander’s vacant eyes.
“No time to explain. I could use your help getting them out of here, however.” Giles nodded toward Willow who was slouched in the back seat. “Give her simple instructions. She’ll do exactly as you say.”
Nodding, Joyce stuck her head into the Citroën. “Come on, Willow. Get out.”
By the time Willow emerged from the car, the two officers were on their way back—scowling.
“Did Buffy get here all right?” Giles asked quietly.
“Yes.” Joyce nodded. “She went into the old store and didn’t come out.”
“Well, that’s something.” Giles retrieved his keys and tossed them to Joyce. “You have to play with the stick to get it into reverse.”
“If you can manage saving the universe, I think I can handle a couple of cops and a sticky gearshift.” Joyce motioned him to get going, then turned to hold off the city’s finest.
Giles shifted his grip on Xander. “Willow! Oz! Walk fast.”
The half-block seemed like a long mile under the curious scrutiny of artists and art show spectators as Giles and Oz dragged Xander down the sidewalk. The circumstances hardly allowed for a clandestine operation. However, they reached the alley without incident and he heaved a sigh of relief as they filed into the deserted store.
“Stop here, Oz.” Giles needed a moment to get his bearings and ordered Oz to drop Xander. A minut
e passed before he realized Willow was still walking like a dutiful robot girl straight for a door on the far wall. “Willow, halt!”
She stopped—a mere foot from the stairs that led down into the cellar, Giles realized when he jumped toward her. He pulled her back and glanced down into the dim light of a single, grime-covered bulb. The stairs were narrow and rotted in places. Maneuvering Xander down would require some creative verbal direction to Oz.
To avoid confusion, Giles guided Willow down into the musty basement first and commanded her to stay. Five minutes later he and Oz finished wrestling Xander down with—hopefully—only minimal bumps and bruises. Winded, he dropped Xander on the basement floor and paused to catch his breath. Willow and Oz sat on command.
Giles took a moment to pull Xander’s arm out from under the dead weight of his lanky frame. The boy’s head rolled back and his mouth fell open. A trickle of drool smeared the dust on his chin. No visible vestige of Xander’s personality remained in his limp body.
Giles peered into Oz and Willow’s blank faces. They could hear him because they responded to his commands. “But are you aware of what’s happening?”
He leaned toward them, hoping for some indication that they understood. Their vacant eyes stared past him, unseeing.
Since the expedition was taking longer than Giles had calculated, Giles didn’t waste any more time. He guided Willow down the ladder into the tunnels and stood her off to the side. He returned to the basement level and lost another five minutes fashioning a harness from lengths of old electrical wire. Issuing precise instructions to Oz, they managed to lower Xander to the tunnel floor where he flopped on a pile of rocks.
Giles wiped his sweaty brow and sighed. None of the numerous “end of the universe” scenarios the Watchers Council had explored smacked of slapstick. Nor, of course, would any by-the-book Watcher waste time and energy to save three teenagers when the fate of the entire universe was at stake.
“At least I don’t have to file a report,” Giles muttered as he struggled to hoist Xander onto his shoulders.
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